Moments and missives from our world
June
23
2010
Kelly and Jonathan, engagement photos
Kelly and Jonathan will marry in August on the Georgia coast. We recently spent some time under the Avenue of the Oaks at Sea Island.
June
23
2010
Palmer and Rosemary, Sea Island, GA
Palmer and Rosemary married at Sea Island, with 70 friends and family members joining them. Here are some moments, and the slideshow from the celebration can be seen here.
June
22
2010
Bafana Bye-Bye
The vuvuzelas will continue to bleat like stunned cattle, even after Bafana Bafana has been eliminated in the World Cup.
Twelve years ago, South Africa made its initial appearance in the World Cup, opening against France in Marseille. A few thousand gathered at a drive-in theater in Johannesburg, braving the winter chill to support the team, with barrel fires keeping the fans warm.
June
06
2010
Environmental tragedy in the Gulf
Some compelling images from the oil spill by a couple guys who can see really well, Charlie Riedel and Win McNamee.
June
03
2010
Documenting Jessica and Ray’s Wedding
When people ask me how far out they need to book me for a wedding, the answer is simple. The first person to retain and contract me gets the date, without exception. First come, first served. I have photographed weddings with a few days notice, and also with many months. Jessica holds the record for the longest time between an initial inquiry and my photographing her wedding… 105 weeks. I received an email in March 2008 about her April 2010 wedding — yes, she did say “I know it is quite a way off…” and after some conversations, we ended up working together.
So, on a recent Saturday in Charleston, with the Blue Angels buzzing through the sky, Jessica and Ray married. I hope you will enjoy their celebration.
May
25
2010
Capa’s World
66 years ago today, a simple step in the wrong place permanently shut one of the most illuminating eyes of the 20th Century. On 25 May 1954, Robert Capa stepped on a landmine while photographing a French patrol in Indochina, and died at age 40.
John Steinbeck wrote, ““His camera caught and held emotion. Capa’s work is itself the picture of a great heart and an overwhelming compassion. No one can take his place. No one can take the place of any fine artist, but we are fortunate to have in his pictures the quality of the man.”
Capa photographed five wars in his career, beginning in Spain, continuing through China, World War II, Israel and finally Indochina. Steven Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski used Capa’s nine surviving photographs from D-Day as guiding references for the first 24 minutes of Saving Private Ryan. Recently, Time put together a piece on his iconic photos from that day:
Yeah, the dryer situation was bad.
Steinbeck continued, “I worked and traveled with Capa a great deal. He may have had closer friends but he had none who loved him more. It was his pleasure to seem casual and careless about his work. He was not. His pictures are not accidents. The emotion in them did not come by chance. He could photograph motion and gaiety and heartbreak. He could photograph thought. He captured a world, and it was Capa’s world.”
Steinbeck also thought Capa’s legacy moved far beyond his images. “He gathered young men about him, encouraged, instructed, even fed and clothed them, but best he taught them respect for their art and integrity in its performance. (Capa) proved to them that a man could live by this medium and still be true to himself. And never once did he try to get them to take his kind of picture. Thus the effect of Capa will be found in the men who worked with him. They will carry a little part of Capa all their lives and perhaps hand him on to their young men.”
Richard Whelan has edited numerous books of Capa’s work, and was chosen by Robert’s brother, Cornell, to write the story of Robert’s life. Above all,” wrote Whelan, “he left behind an extraordinary body of work that showed not only the nature of war as it had never been shown before, but also a tremendous sympathy for individuals in all kinds of circumstances, and a legend that would long continue to inspire other photographers.”
Barcelona, January 1939, © Robert Capa / Magnum Photos
At the tail end of the Spanish Civil War, Capa photographed a beautiful refugee child in Barcelona, and subsequently wrote, with his usual understatement, “It is not always easy to stand aside and be unable to do anything except record the sufferings around one.”
Richard Whelan concluded his biography:, “Capa set a standard of bravery and compassion for all war photographers who have followed him, and he died… working in the tradition which he invented, for which there is no other word but his name.”
One of Robert Capa’s mantras for story telling was “if your photographs are not good enough, then you are not close enough.” That holds for both physical proximity and emotional proximity. Capa liked people, and let them know it by engaging with his subject and pouring his heart into his work. When people ask me about my photographic influences, Capa is at the top of the list.
As Sam Capa Zielenbach grows in future years, he will be able to learn how people experienced turbulent times in world history through the eyes and heart of his namesake.
